Open Letter to Wapo’s David Ignatius

BBSNews 2014-08-05 — By Michael Hess. In a column yesterday in the Washington Post you left out some pertinent facts. The Likud Party has made it clear since at least 1977 that there will never be a Palestinian state, never a Palestine. This is well established fact and yet I did not see that in your article. And you left out all the intense subjugation, land and resource, theft, home demolitions, killings, imprisonment and torture of children without charge…

By Mohammed Omer.

And in Gaza, the world’s largest open-air prison, the wholesale destruction of a captive and occupied people over lies, (Bibi lied twice about it, this was in all the news…), the attempted destruction of the nascent unity government, the Crime Against Humanity that started it all, the illegal colonies, and on and on.

There is never an excuse for deliberate attacks on civilians in conflict. These are war crimes. This is true for both sides. Hamas’s indiscriminate targeting of Israeli civilians is equally unacceptable. However, three Israeli civilians have been killed by Palestinian rockets, while an overwhelming majority of the 1,600 Palestinians killed have been civilians, including more than 330 children. The need for international judicial proceedings to investigate and end these violations of international law should be taken very seriously.

The fact is, Hamas is evolving, Likud is not. Just the latest War Crimes in Gaza are abominable but they are just the last in a long list of them, well documented crimes by the United Nations and various international Human Rights group and NGO’s. Treat your readers as adults. Tell them ALL of the truth and not just the “truth” that comes from the Israeli military censor who censors every scrap of news coming out of Israel.

Don’t push Israeli Hasbara (propaganda) about our sitting Secretary of State John Kerry who has done yeoman’s work, thanklessly, from people like you. Most observers knew he would fail with Benjamin Netanyahu and the extremist group, the Likud, who has ruled Israel for many years, but it was not for lack of trying. It is because Israel needs a regime change, Likud is no less extreme than Hamas. This is undeniable given what is happening.

And what is with your trashing of Turkey and Qatar? It makes no logical sense that you are bashing our other allies in the region. Where is CENTCOM again?

Don’t act like we have a military censor here in the US, and don’t give in to the religious bigotry and childishness in this country that helps keep this conflict alive in the hopes of ushering in the fabled and nonsensical idea of a Second Coming(tm). In short, work for a just peace or keep your peace because the facts are getting too hard to hide and many of us are posting them in non-traditional news. People are becoming must less trusting of traditional news as I am sure you are aware. Be relevant. Be real, and be factual. Humanity demands it. I know it is hard to challenge the Religious Right here in the United States but you must if you want to be part of the solution and not be sustaining the current illegal occupation(s).

Either the rule of law applies or there simply is no rule of law. International law must be applied evenly and the double standard for Israel in this regard must end. Yes, the world knows that Bashar al-Assad is a butcher but must Israel, through the Likud, act in this manner as well while professing to have the “most moral army in the world”? Given that Israel’s IDF uses individual Human Shields contrary to their own High Courts ruling against the odious practice and so many other inhumane practices from the checkpoints to the imprisonments of protesters against the illegal occupation(s) without charge, many of them kids, the world can clearly see that claim is nothing but Hasbara propaganda.

Both sides must be held equally responsible for the War Crimes that they commit, international law must be respected by Israel for Israel to have legitimacy, and it must happen now, before Israel can massacre anyone else in the quest to destroy Palestinian unity, and to protect the illegal colonies.

To stay relevant, commentators such as yourself need to stick to the entire set of facts, not just a subset of them in a bid to protect Israeli sensibilities. Justice commands this. After all, there would be no Hamas or any other resistance if there was true justice in Palestine. Palestinian militancy has always had at its heart, the fact that their land had and has been usurped by outsiders.

The narrative of Palestine, including the Nakba, must be acknowledged to forge a true peace, not a one-sided peace where Israel dictates the terms to the people who were there before them when Israel was first created as a modern state in 1948. Indeed, if there was true justice and not just a one-sided slaughter of innocent people who just want the incursions and the land and resource theft to stop, the entire Muslim world (and the wider world) would fall to their collective knees in amazement that the United States was finally going to apply an even, firm hand, and a severe spanking for biting the hand that feeds it, in mediating a conflict that cannot be ended without it.

Israeli lives are not more valuable than Palestinian lives. They are of equal value. It is time for writers like you to recognize this fact for the good of humanity (and U.S. National Security).

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I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

"A census of Palestine conducted by the Mandatory government on 23 October 1922. Population figures in the census featured a breakdown by district of residence, religion, language and age.

The total population of Palestine was given as 757,182, of whom 590,890 (78%) were Muslims (“Mohammedans”), 83,794 (11%) Jews, 73,024 (9%) Christians and 9,474 others. The population of Jerusalem was given as 62,578, of whom 13,413 were Muslims, 33,971 Jews, 14,699 Christians and 495 others." From the report:

"In accordance with the provisions of the Proclamation of 1st September 1922, published in the Official Gazette of the same date, a census of Palestine was held on the night of the twenty-second -- twenty-third of October, 1922."

"(1) To those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which formerly governed them and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world, there should be applied the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilisation and that securities for the performance of this trust should be embodied in this Covenant...

(4) Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory..."

-- Avalon Project at Yale Law School, "The Covenant of the League of Nations, Including Amendments adopted to December, 1924, June 28th, 1919," Lillian Goldman Law Library. (accessed December 2nd, 2016).